


An Incomplete Lexicon of Unwarranted Festivities

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Christmas, Community: hlh_shortcuts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 21:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small and assorted selection of yuletide events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Incomplete Lexicon of Unwarranted Festivities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pat_t](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pat_t/gifts).



_1\. Christmas_

Christmas is a thoroughly modern invention. It's no co-incidence that the popularity of a fundamentally flawed festival aligns exactly with the growth of mass consumption and rose-tinted sentimentality. Methos blames the Victorians. Also their fault: lieder, Pears soap advertisements and Landseer. 

He'll give them cricket.

Or so Methos tells Duncan, one cold and frosty morning in November, while Duncan raises an eyebrow, shamelessly updates his address book from Joe's database, and orders (although this Methos only discovers later, when the box arrives) just under four hundred Christmas cards.

With robins.

Methos signs one of them. Amanda can fend for herself.

 

_2\. Joe_

While Duncan's socks have inhabited their own drawer for the last six months, it's still Methos' house. The fact that Joe's had a set of keys since the holding company signed the deeds is irrelevant. Invite one watcher, you've invited them all. It's the principle of the thing.

"But you are a watcher!" Duncan bellows, finally infuriated.

"So?" Methos snipes.

"Fine," Duncan says. He sulks. It's not pretty. 

Joe arrives the week before Christmas, just as he does every year. His slippers are under the bed, and the beer's on tap.

A man should be with family in the holidays.

 

_3\. Guests_

Family, however, is a limited term. Amanda and Nick - 

"Fine, Invite the whole damn clan. See if I care," says Methos. He doesn't mean it and he'll say so in the morning, just as soon as the afterglow's faded. 

\- arrive three days later, bearing gifts and all too happy to sing carols, wear woolen sweaters with pictures of reindeer (Nick) and sparkling earrings (Amanda). Methos locks up the silver, sends the diamonds to the bank and hides the Bollinger at the back of the cellar. Duncan, irritatingly imperturbable, supplies provisions.

Later, Methos wins Risk, but looses Monopoly. Badly.

 

_4\. Tree_

Nick and Duncan drag the thing inside and set it up, all ten feet of it, but it's Amanda who uncovers the boxes of glass decorations and the delicate painted garlands. The star on the top is German silver. Nobody falls off a ladder and the fuse only blows once, although Joe has to veto the candles. Amanda shakes all the parcels, Duncan lights the fire, and Joe posts pictures on instagram. There's eggnog. It's disgustingly sentimental. 

"In my day," Methos says, "We _sacrificed_ at the solstice." He glowers meaningfully.

Joe hits him upside the head. "Grinch," he says fondly.

 

_5\. Mistletoe_

That's a given. He knows it by the pricking of his thumbs and the sticky slide of berries under his boots, although these days the mistletoe comes from the garden center in the village, with ribbon. Amanda and Joe, in the hallway. Amanda and Duncan, affectionate, same. Amanda and Nick, locked in passionate embrace, discovered in the kitchen while the mince pies burnt in the oven. Duncan and Joe, puckering up and laughing. Amanda and the postman. Amanda and Nick, again. Methos and Amanda, _very_ dramatic. 

Methos and Duncan, in front of the fire, late at night, softly. Then, not.

 

_6\. Presents_

"No," says Duncan.

"Not even tied up in a bow?" says Methos. He tucks himself a little closer to Duncan's flanks. He's not snuggling. It's cold.

Duncan winces. "If you can tie your cock in a bow, I don't want to see it. Ever." He pats the flesh under discussion, limp now, a little damp. "And you are not giving yourself to anyone except me." Fingers tighten on Methos' shoulder. "No public nudity. Cashmere for Amanda, whiskey for Nick, studio time for Joe."

"Mmm?" says Methos. 

"Ah," says Duncan. He rolls over, weighty, heated. "Me, you can be naked for."

 

_7\. Amanda_

Sparkles. Methos hasn't seen her so relaxed since Rebecca died, all the frenetic energy and powerful charm of the Paris years reborn into a slow, wicked smile. She's still the only woman he knows who will go sledding in reclaimed mink and Laboutin boots, but when she and Nick spar, she's all shining steel. 

They have history.

"No," he says, mutters, cornered in the small hours of the morning in the kitchen passageway, with a plate of fruit cake and two glasses of mulled wine.

"Not even-"

"No."

"What if-"

"No. Are _you_ offering to share?"

"...no," says Amanda. "Dammit."

 

_8\. Duncan_

Is, possibly, happy. Methos allows himself a measure of self-congratulation, in private, unacknowledged.

"Smug git," says Joe, amusement softening the words. 

They're standing out on the veranda, watching Nick and Duncan bring in a sledge-load of logs for the hearth. There's no need, the stables are piled with timber, tinder dry. Odds to evens, the trip's either pissing or bonding. 

"Piss off," says Methos, without heat.

It's bonding. Nick laughs. Duncan demonstrates, his whole body involved. He lunges, empty handed. He's grinning, relaxed.

"Nope," Joe says, wrapping a heavy arm over Methos' shoulders. "You did good, kid," he says, quieter.

 

_9\. Images_

Joe takes a photograph. He has a new camera, a digital SLR, a gift from the absent Amy. This image, Duncan laughing, he prints out on Christmas eve and hangs from the card rack. ("Does every immortal in Europe have my address?" Methos asks, exasperated, his walls festooned with unlikely nativity scenes set in snow, cheerfully colored galleons and improbable sheep. "Not all of them," Duncan says, although his eyebrows are shifty.) Also there, pictures of Nick and Amanda, with champagne. Methos, asleep, with cracker. Joe, baking, Duncan, magisterial, surrounded by wrapping paper. More.

There are copies in Methos' in-box.

 

_10\. Slippers_

Wearing of.

Joe, obviously, wryly amused. His have embroidered superheroes over the toes. Duncan's are faded tartan, the uppers pulling from the sole, worn to comfort and pre-dating by far the murderous half-decade when he met Methos. Amanda seldom discards her heels, Nick favors knitted fisherman's socks, sliding on polished floorboards.

When the smell of frying bacon calls Methos from his bed on Christmas morning, he forgoes boots for crimson velvet slippers. It's snowed overnight.

Duncan notices, serves breakfast, says nothing. Later, presents open, turkey roasting, he asks quietly, "Staying, then?"

"Looks like it," says Methos, and flexes his toes.

 

_11\. Bed_

Of course he's staying. It's his house. Four millennia, he can put down roots sometimes, a wife, two, a house in Cheapside, a bar in Paris, a few diaries. A brokerage house, some paintings. A bed. He's been opening up the rooms one by one. In November, the bedroom above the library with its louvred windows and matched closets. The bed's Georgian, the hangings restored, although the mattress is new. Feathers make Duncan sneeze.

"Like it?" he asks, eventually.

"Huh," says Duncan, non-committal. He sneaks out a hand, pulls Methos close. He's all whiskey scented, peat fire warm. "This ours?"

 

_12\. Love_

"Thought about socks," Methos offers. It shouldn't work, him and Duncan. It does. 

"I like this better," Duncan says. He thinks, loudly. His hands infiltrate layers, with intent. "Missing something, though." 

Pillows, reading light, bedside table. Laundry basket, for the love of God, Duncan being unaccountably tetchy about wet towels.

Oh. "Can be arranged," says Methos.

"Naked," Duncan says, letting go.

Methos nearly loses his jeans, unbelted, Duncan being sneakier than the average Scotsman. Then, he does, hurried. And the rest.

"Better," says Duncan. He's smiling. The mattress dips under his weight, encouragingly firm.

"Mac-"

"Yeah," says Duncan. "Me too."


End file.
